On consciousness

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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jupiviv
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Re: On consciousness

Post by jupiviv »

cousinbasil wrote:I will try one more time.
Didn't notice this. Very well, I'll try one more time as well.
So time can increase or decrease in size?
Why can you not assume the obvious? Time has an arrow. The spatial dimensions do not. Thousands of physical experiments show how time and space are intertwined, and both are measurable. Can we at least agree on that?
In those thousands of physical experiments time is defined in a very different way than it is in philosophy or in everyday conversation. In physics time is essentially a measurement, and it corresponds with other measurements. It is not the same as the concept of change or permanence, or present, past and future. Sadly, you seem to be utterly oblivious to the fact that the same words can have different meanings in different contexts, and that those meanings aren't interchangeable.
Physics does not deal with causality? Are you fucking serious? The entire Western scientific tradition has nothing to do with reality. I am trying to discuss what is really out there. What are you talking about, then?
Science deals with specific causes and effects, not the idea of causality itself. You are like the blind man who felt the elephant's leg and said, "why, the elephant is a pillar!" Except in this case you are a priori determined to prove that the elephant is a pillar, even if someone else urges you to feel the rest of the elephant's body and understand that it is not a pillar.
Perhaps if you were more well-read, I would be making more sense?

As I said in my previous post, that is part of what you think is the justification of your position. Question a person's erudition instead of dealing with his actual arguments.

"You say that a married bachelor is an impossible entity, and my proof for their existence does not make sense. Well, perhaps if you were married to a more attractive woman, I would be making more sense."

But is it really worth it, cousin? Is it worth berating others' intelligence in a forum debate just to maintain your belief in a 23-dimensional super being who created everything?
Liberty Sea
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Re: On consciousness

Post by Liberty Sea »

I make this reply to Jupivix, but if anyone can answer the questions I put to him, I am all ear.
jupiviv wrote: No, I am sticking to simple logic. If you can't see the contradiction in saying that a God who is the Totality can create something else, or have any properties whatsoever, then I can't help you. Likewise if you don't see the contradiction in saying that something can be created out of thin air.
Logic is enough to disprove it, by definition.
I thought so when I was 15.
But I rethought when I learned that sub-atomic particles can pop into existence of nothing. The Law of conservation of mass apparently does not apply to the quantum realm.
"The principle of matter conservation may be considered as an approximate physical law that is true only in the classical sense, without consideration of special relativity and quantum mechanics. Another difficulty with the idea of conservation of "matter" is that "matter" is not a well-defined word scientifically, and when particles that are considered to be "matter" (such as electrons and positrons) are annihilated to make photons (which are often not considered matter) then conservation of matter does not take place, even in isolated systems."

Well, a quark does not pop into existence uncaused. There are certain factors and force that prevent infinite type of particles popping into existence, but we don't know what that is. Religious people explain it with God. But I don't jump to a conclusion. Maybe there are many here who are better at quantum mechanics than me and can explain it.
But as far as solipsism goes, we don't even know if matters exist. We might just be consciousness and nothing more. If you cannot prove to me you are not a fragment of my imagination, what is there to disprove God? David Quinn himself believes that we have no way of knowing if we are not just game characters designed by a pimply teenager, just electric signals on a screen put together by a programmer, left alone the law of Conservation of mass. We face it that we can't even be certain about the stuff consciousness is made of and scientific research is useless as science can never disprove solipsism.

So disprove solipsism for me and I will listen.
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jupiviv
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Re: On consciousness

Post by jupiviv »

Liberty Sea wrote:I thought so when I was 15.
An average 8 year old can understand that something cannot be created out of nothing, and that things can't pop into and out of existence at random.
The Law of conservation of mass apparently does not apply to the quantum realm.
As I said, I'm not concerned with either quantum physics or the laws of thermodynamics. They do not have any connection with the subject at hand.
But as far as solipsism goes, we don't even know if matters exist. We might just be consciousness and nothing more.
"Might just be" - all you've given me until now is speculation minus reasoning. We might just be magic fairy dust, or winged mandrills. It is a certainty that if consciousness is everything then it cannot have any identifiable features, just as it is a certainty that if it is finite then it can be identified and contrasted with other things. Right there is the proof against solipsism.
If you cannot prove to me you are not a fragment of my imagination, what is there to disprove God?
I can't prove that to you with absolute certainty, but I can prove to you that your mind is not all there is. See above.
Liberty Sea
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Re: On consciousness

Post by Liberty Sea »

An average 8 year old can understand that something cannot be created out of nothing
Let me fix it as: Until 15 years old, when I learned about quantum physics and solipsism.
You seem to trust an 8 years old's instinct more than a quantum physicist's research. I trust neither of them.
and that things can't pop into and out of existence at random.
Of course not random. They might be the Will of god for all we know.
jupiviv wrote:
"Might just be" - all you've given me until now is speculation minus reasoning. We might just be magic fairy dust, or winged mandrills. It is a certainty that if consciousness is everything then it cannot have any identifiable features, just as it is a certainty that if it is finite then it can be identified and contrasted with other things. Right there is the proof against solipsism.
Solipsism is just the idea that we can only be certain about the content of our mind and we cannot be certain about anything else, it is not the belief that my mind alone exists.
There might be only two beings in the universe: God's consciousness and my consciousness, and no matter at all. Can you disprove this?


As for whether universal consciousness exists, I elaborated it my last reply to David Quinn. I welcome you to answer it in his place.

God's consciousness is defined to be self-sufficient and can remain in its entity without being in contrast with any other beings. I would love to see why he can't create my consciousness out of nothing.


Consider this second scenario as well: If energy can materialize into matter, then physical objects might have materialized out of God's consciousness, instead of strict nothingness.

Quinn seems to believe that Awareness can be said to be nothing, and nothing is the basis for everything, as he said in one of his first letters to Solway.
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Talking Ass
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Re: On consciousness

Post by Talking Ass »

Sandy: what if we are not God's children but God's vermin? What if what we are and do is simply not worthy of any sort of bother? When you scrub between your toes you displace whole societies without a second thought. What if we only become relevant to 'God' when we begin to see and act radically differently? OTOH, what if we are like, say, the world's present population of street curs (dogs)? Just as you don't loose any sleep over the various entities and often tremendous personalities and great-spirits within this community, neither can the sophisticated intelligences that mediate God in our sphere of being.

But I knew a very very unusual street dog who lived on the streets of Caracas in Alta Mira. I used to sit in Plaza Alta Mira reading some treatise or other on spiritual life, or I may have been writing the notes that later became my E-Course, and this dog actually sought me out, not for food tid-bits or a handout, but to gaze imploringly at me and cock his head to one side with a look of deep curiosity, as though he felt I could help him with his existential problem that, from his perspective certainly, was difficult if not impossible of solution. At first I laughed him off, but then I realized the importance, nay even the providential confluence of circumstances that had placed me on his path, and so I began to recite the Dharma as if talking to the open air to avoid the rather compromising appearance of an ass preaching to a dog.

I told him of his body, his body as both trap and vessel for Realization; I spoke of the necessity of asking the Grand Questions and also the impossibility of ever receiving exactly the response that would ever satisfy the mind. At that point he whined with a sentiment that to me felt like genuine dispair and which deeply moved me. I repeated what has become the cornerstone of my Doctrines, saying "Yes, Pepe---" (for his name was Pepe) "---you will never be able to understand just what this world is nor how you have come into it, not in any sense that will satisfy your dogged intellect. But what you CAN DO is to learn how to clearly enunciate, from out of your doggish mental and imaginal platform, a prayer and a plea to those entities that stand over all created, conscious beings and function as mediators between ourselves and the Completely Inexpressable..."

It was at this moment that his ears perked up and his eyes narrowed in acute concentration, and I saw the 'little hammers' of outside intelligence beating on the stiff and hard surfaces of his doggy cranium trying to get through. "C'mon, Pepe!" I implored, "You can do it! Just keep your focus on the Question! Don't worry about the Answer just yet." And it is true: We can only really articulate the right questions even if those questions cannot be answered, or the answer to them comes through the whole platform of our individual existence; not as an answer in language---how silly for us to think so!---nor in reason's equations, but through an invisible force of response that begins to resonate through all that we understand as 'life', 'this platform of existence', 'the world'. By articulating---as Pepe 'articulated' with his head-cocking, by his doggish whining that came from the very bottom of his throat and from the very core of his being---a 'question' about this absurd existence, this strange pennance we pay, these most unfortunate circumstances in which we find ourselves, from out of the very fabric of this strange surrounding world begin to appear the 'signs' and 'omens' that are the commencement of the Great Teaching about 'this place', this place where we are.

Pepe looked at me and the glint in his eye had turned to gratitude, even a sort of canine bliss, and he barked with a note of hope and enthusiasm, then licked my hoof. "Yes, yes, Pepe, I do so appreciate your display of gratitude to me who must surely appear as Liberating Guru to you, buried as you are in an ocean of nescience..." I petted his head and offered words of encouragment. "Pepe, Pepe, Pepe, the world is VERY strange and does not render its secrets easily. We are destined to search and to keep searching and only when we have on one level or another posed the right question can the answer begin to unfold. Don't rely on your dog-intellect, Pepe, but neither fail to cultivate it. If you can, learn a daily prayer (mantra) similar to the Gayatri that you learn to recite from out of your flesh-prison on the shadow of a road between your birth and your death..." and he looked at me with a noble, canine solemnity that left a deep impression on me. "Do you wish me to teach you the Gayatri Mantra, oh Pepe, Bold Seeker of Truth?". And he barked with that high-toned barking expressing unstoppable, if dog-like, enthusiasm. I leaned down and whispered down into his cavernous ear:
  • Oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ
    tát savitúr váreṇ(i)yaṃ
    bhárgo devásya dhīmahi
    dhíyo yó naḥ pracodáyāt
Which translated* means:
  • "O thou existence Absolute, Creator of the three dimensions, we contemplate upon thy divine light. Stimulate our intellect and bestow upon us true knowledge!"
"Pepe, there are many, many dimensions to this old old prayer. You may spend a life-time trying to understand them all but in a sense that is not the point. The prayer is not dependant on the specificity of the words, though some say it is, but on the sincerity of the imploration! One has to arrive at that point where one---as if whining, Pepe, as you whine!---cries out for help in getting out of this mess we have somehow gotten ourselves into. You think you will unravel it all with your doggish mind, don't you?" (At this moment Pepe looked at me a little 'sheepishly' and lowered his head) "...But no one will say this is 'bad' Pepe! No-one, and certainly not I! But do not stop there! Send out into the cosmos your imploration to understand and know that Time is a mysterious vehicle of Knowing. Be on the lookout for the strange signs and synchronicities that will begin to appear on the path you walk! Stand before them like emmissaries from the unknown! But do not stop there either! Keep imploring! Keep asking for ever-greater dimensions of knowing to open up! And Pepe: Never get frustrated. The Road Home is not an easy one and is sometimes very, very strange! Now go! GO! Scat! Off with you little one!"

And I gave him a playful slap on his doggish butt with that dismissive authority and condescending affection which I generally express to the Glorious Ones of Genius Forum: those 'ultra-geniuses'! And away he ran, back into his world of his fellow dogs. His little intrigues. His power-struggles. His doggish growling of his limited understanding. His squaring off against his 'enemies' on pissy little corners! His bitches, his puppies, his excrement, his handouts! Yet I truly believe that Pepe did allow, if even for a moment, some part of the message to get through his thick, doggish skull. And what more can we hope for really? A dog might spend his whole life working out ONE SIMPLE LESSON and it may not even approach the 'right' one needful of being learned! But we have an eternity to figure it out...

So Sandy: What if we are not God's 'children' but some species of problematic, argumentative, willful and malintentioned sons-of-bitches?
_______________________________________________

*Not really translated but restated.
Last edited by Talking Ass on Mon Apr 30, 2012 2:45 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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David Quinn
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Re: On consciousness

Post by David Quinn »

Liberty Sea wrote:
David Quinn wrote: He could conceiveably have a different form of consciousness - have different senses, have the ability to think faster, have more intuitive insight, experience things more vividly, etc. But the essential characteristic of consciousness - that of being aware of what is before us and blocking everything else out - would be the same.
God's consciousness is described to be able to perceive everything, like the eye that could see itself. And he perceives time spatially, which means, he see the past, the present and the future simultaneously like different frames of a movie placed together. For this reason God's consciousness is beyond time. Our cannot conceive his.

It's irrational, that's why we can't conceive of it. It's all very well for us to go off on airy-fairy flights of fancy, but at some point we do need to ground it all in logical fact. Otherwise, we run the risk of simply participating in nonsense.

For example, it is easy - indeed, very easy, especially if we do it with a vague and hazy mind - to imagine a "universal consciousness" that perceives everything. It sounds like a nice idea on the surface. But it all begins to fall apart the moment you look more closely at it.

The act of perception requires an observer, objects to observe, and a perspective linking the two. Thus, the "perception of everything" requires an infinite number of observing positions and an infinite number of perspectives - in other words, an infinite number of consciousnesses. I would be tempted to say that this would pose a problem for the unity of our proposed universal consciousness, but I suppose someone could pipe up and claim that because God is infinitely intelligent he would have no problem integrating all these consciousnesses into one. Even though this is a purely theological solution (i.e. it's simply concocted out of the blue), I'll let it slide.

But suddenly, we encounter another problem - namely, a perception always involves a simplification, an approximation, a cutting away of much detail. When we perceive a tree with the naked eye, for example, we only ever perceive a few essential features of it. We don't perceive its molecular structure or its inner chemical workings. We only take in a few of the many nuances of the bark and leaves and so on. In short, to perceive is to simplify and distort.

Not even an infinite God with an infinite consciousness can get around this problem, for the problem is inherent to perception itself. It is similar to the act of measurement. As soon as you try to measure something - say, the length of a table - you immediately create errors and approximations, for it is impossible to measure something to an infinite degree. At some point, one has to stop at a certain level of accuracy and make the measurement. It doesn't matter if you take it to 3 decimal places or 6 decimal places or 100 trillion - this stopping and measuring will always produce errors. In the same way, a perception involving an observer, observed objects and a perspective will always be simplified and distorted.

By now, the credibility of a universal consciousness is looking more than a little shaky. No matter how you cut it, an infinite number of simplified, distorted perceptions doesn't add up to the perception of everything. And then there is the further problem of where each observing point should be. Even if you had countless observing points packed in together as tightly as can be, there are still going to be gaps in between each observing point. Yet more data is being lost within the cracks.

Liberty Sea wrote:If a geometric point had consciousness, it could not conceive a line. If a one-dimensional straight line had consciousness, it could not conceive a plane. And if a plane had consciousness it could not conceive a three-dimensional solid object. We are three-dimensional beings, can we conceive how a 4-dimensional being who exist in a higher dimension would think? Can we see two circles in a table and guess that they are the marks of two fingers of a human being? Any line consist of infinite points in a way that a point cannot conceive, any plane consists of infinite lines in a way that a line cannot conceive and any solid consists of infinite planes in a way that a plane cannot conceive. A higher dimension object would consist of infinite three-dimensional objects in a way that a three-dimensional being cannot conceive. In this dimension the past, the present and the future of the whole universe are displayed simultaneously, all three-dimensional images of the universe at all point in time are perfectly visible to the eye of God like a jewel of infinite facets. Among the modern physics community, this concept is not new.
None of this gets around the problems I outlined above.

Liberty Sea wrote:Any potion of the All might just be as infinite as the All. For example, the totality of Odd numbers is as infinite as the totality of Natural numbers, which is just as infinite as the totality of Real numbers. A popular view in mysticism is that: In God's mind, any potion of the All contain all that is not it within itself, and A is both A and not A. It is not illogical, just a higher logical that is seemingly illogical from our lower logic's point of view.
There is no such thing as "higher logic". There is only logic. While our conceptions and worldviews can be challenged by different or higher perspectives, logic itself can never be. Take extreme care here, Liberty. This is a vital issue!

Portions of the ALL can indeed contain infinities of the kind you mention, albeit as conceptual possibilities in the mind. But when I talk about the infinite nature of the ALL, I am meaning something a little different. In essence, the ALL is infinite because it is not a thing. It has no form, no location, no rival. Although it generates all things, it itself can never coalesce into a thing. This is using the word "infinite" in a deeper, more existential sense.

As for your mystical quote, I would interpret that as saying that the whole of God can be seen, by those with enlightened eyes, in any particular thing. The whole of God is everywhere.

Liberty Sea wrote:
David Quinn wrote:It is exactly the same. We are able to distinguish between consciousness and strawberries because they each have their unique characteristics and their own unique identity. Identity is not a physical property. It is a property that all things partake in, physical or otherwise.
If a strawberry is all that is, it won't have the outer shape of a strawberry, but it atomic structure, i.e. inner structure remain the same. The chemical process within it would be pretty much the same.
The process of God's consciousness does not have an outer appearance, and it is not composed of part, it is indivisible.
Yes, so neither of these conceptions apply to the real world that we experience. The world we experience is neither homogeneous, nor is it composed of nothing but strawberry parts. This is no surprise given that conceiving of the ALL as a strawberry or as God's consciousness are both equally ludicrous.

Liberty Sea wrote:You seem to think that enlightenment is equal to immortality. But it is just a metaphorical immortality.
No, it is real immortality, not metaphorical, and the only kind there is. In enlightenment, one literally goes beyond life and death. One sees the impossibility of being alive in the first place.

Liberty Sea wrote: From a materialistic point of view, your consciousness arose when the atoms in your brain are put together in right positions, when then these atom decompose, or fall apart from their positions your consciousness would disappear. In a sense you are your consciousness and when your consciousness no longer work, you die.

True, but we are not our consciouness. We are the ALL. Going beyond life and death means abandoning attachment to all things, even to our own life and our own consciousness. A thief cannot steal from a person who possesses nothing to begin with.

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David Quinn
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Re: On consciousness

Post by David Quinn »

Liberty Sea wrote:And if the universe, namely the total mass, is just like a drop of water amidst the immeasurable endless ocean that is God, then even if the All consists only of God and the universe, would you say God is insignificant to the endlessness of the All?

The problem with the thrust of your argument here - and I do realize that you are experimenting and exploring the theistic vision for all it is worth - is that it is based on false premises. It is ignoring the fact that deciding where the universe ends and God begins is a mental creation, that things only exist by definition. So on this basis alone, I have trouble treating your arguments seriously.

But even if we cast that aside and pretend for a moment that there really is a division between the universe and God, there is the further problem that we are only ever dealing with appearances here. It might appear in a given moment that the universe is a small dot within a large ocean of God, but that could easily change in the next moment. Who can say? It is impossible to establish any appearance as being the true, correct one.

This goes to the core issue of trying to find truth within forms, which is a delusional activity. It is impossible to find the truth in any form, because forms (i.e. appearances) are always provisional and uncertain. One needs to learn how to go beyond all forms, beyond the universe, beyond God - that is the only place where truth can be found.

Well, a quark does not pop into existence uncaused. There are certain factors and force that prevent infinite type of particles popping into existence, but we don't know what that is. Religious people explain it with God. But I don't jump to a conclusion. Maybe there are many here who are better at quantum mechanics than me and can explain it.
But as far as solipsism goes, we don't even know if matters exist. We might just be consciousness and nothing more. If you cannot prove to me you are not a fragment of my imagination, what is there to disprove God? David Quinn himself believes that we have no way of knowing if we are not just game characters designed by a pimply teenager, just electric signals on a screen put together by a programmer, left alone the law of Conservation of mass. We face it that we can't even be certain about the stuff consciousness is made of and scientific research is useless as science can never disprove solipsism.

So disprove solipsism for me and I will listen.
The truth of solipsism can never be proven or disproven. It is impossible, for example, to dismiss the possibility that one's own consciousness is the only consciousness there is and that everyone else is an unconscious automaton within one's consciousness. This is an eternal uncertainty that not even the greatest of Buddhas can resolve.

But this uncertainty doesn't really matter when it comes to spirituality and enlightenment. This is because no matter what the scenario, no matter if solipsism is real or not, what we experience in each moment is a direct manifestation of reality. And with this realization, we go beyond solipsism utterly.

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Talking Ass
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Re: On consciousness

Post by Talking Ass »

David wrote: "But this uncertainty doesn't really matter when it comes to spirituality and enlightenment. This is because no matter what the scenario, no matter if solipsism is real or not, what we experience in each moment is a direct manifestation of reality. And with this realization, we go beyond solipsism utterly."
Anyone---even Jupi's 8 year-old---can see that this statement is false. From a position of 'solipsim' (which can have many different inflections), we may be completely erroneous about 'all of it', 'what it means', 'where I stand in relation to it', and certainly what is 'enlightenment'. It may NOT be a direct manifestation of 'reality' but an exteriorization of neurosis or anything else for that matter. In direct proportion to your 'beyond solipsism utterly', I would assert the possibility of 'entering utterly into it'. At the very least we would all need to take the possibility of self-deception into account.
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Re: On consciousness

Post by jupiviv »

Liberty Sea wrote:You seem to trust an 8 years old's instinct more than a quantum physicist's research. I trust neither of them.
It's not an 8 years old's "instinct". It is simple logic which even an 8 year old has the capacity to understand. It is unfortunate that you seem to have lost that capacity.

Also, quantum physicists' research doesn't point to things popping into and out of existence without any cause. For a skeptic you seem remarkably certain of some things.
Liberty Sea wrote:
jupiviv wrote:and that things can't pop into and out of existence at random.
Of course not random. They might be the Will of god for all we know.

More empty speculation. If things are created out of nowhere then they would in fact be random, i.e, without a cause. This is because nothing cannot cause a thing, and vice versa.
Solipsism is just the idea that we can only be certain about the content of our mind and we cannot be certain about anything else, it is not the belief that my mind alone exists.
If solipsists accept that the mind is not all there is then they are obviously contradicting themselves in believing that they can only be certain of the content of their mind.
There might be only two beings in the universe: God's consciousness and my consciousness, and no matter at all. Can you disprove this?
Presuming that by "universe" you mean the totality of all things, that scenario is definitely impossible. There is no reason to say that only two specific beings exist, since other beings can also be conceived.
God's consciousness is defined to be self-sufficient and can remain in its entity without being in contrast with any other beings. I would love to see why he can't create my consciousness out of nothing.
That is an invalid definition because a thing cannot exist and not be in contrast with other things.
Consider this second scenario as well: If energy can materialize into matter, then physical objects might have materialized out of God's consciousness, instead of strict nothingness.
They might have, but then God's consciousness would be essentially the same as any finite thing.
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Re: On consciousness

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Ass wrote:It may NOT be a direct manifestation of 'reality' but an exteriorization of neurosis or anything else for that matter
But the neurosis at least would be real. Or is that provisional?
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Re: On consciousness

Post by jupiviv »

David Quinn wrote:The truth of solipsism can never be proven or disproven. It is impossible, for example, to dismiss the possibility that one's own consciousness is the only consciousness there is and that everyone else is an unconscious automaton within one's consciousness. This is an eternal uncertainty that not even the greatest of Buddhas can resolve.

Solipsists believe that one's own consciousness is the only *thing* that can be certainly said to exist, not the only *consciousness* specifically. It can definitely be disproved that a person's consciousness is the only thing that certainly exists(see my previous post). It can also be disproved that it is the only consciousness that certainly exists, because one is conscious of different things, and therefore has different consciousnesses. Basically it rests on the false assumption that there is some kind of a substance/stream of consciousness beyond the appearance of things.
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Re: On consciousness

Post by cousinbasil »

jupiviv wrote:Science deals with specific causes and effects, not the idea of causality itself.
This is the hugest possible load of horse-shit. I have no idea what made you believe this, but it is eerily familiar in this forum. Do yourself a favor. Dare to educate yourself. Your certainty might be challenged for a while - but hey, jup- you're young. You can take it.
As I said in my previous post, that is part of what you think is the justification of your position. Question a person's erudition instead of dealing with his actual arguments.
You have none. You respond to arguments by saying - that is not how I defined so and so. I don't care about your definitions - I care about the truth. Yet scientists are to you like blind men feeling up an elephant. So what do I do? Because a 25 year old who thinks he has all the answers relegates science to a comic parable, I should not concern myself with what anyone else has to say?

How many fucking times do I have to say it here? I have never had an original thought in my life - but sometimes I put the thought into terms I have not seen.
But is it really worth it, cousin? Is it worth berating others' intelligence in a forum debate just to maintain your belief in a 23-dimensional super being who created everything?
When have I berated you in the slightest? Least of all your intelligence? The fact that I choose to enter into discourse with you - as opposed to most of the posters here - should show I respect your intelligence.

But tell me, is this quote of yours really fair? Did I say I believe in anything? Clearly, my posts are part of the many things you choose not to read for comprehension. "23 space" was simply me repeating something a calculus professor once uttered in exasperation when someone answered why anyone would ever need to learn to do integration in more than three dimensions. He was trying to say, as far as math goes, the number of dimensions is irrelevant.
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David Quinn
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Re: On consciousness

Post by David Quinn »

Talking Ass wrote:
David wrote: "But this uncertainty doesn't really matter when it comes to spirituality and enlightenment. This is because no matter what the scenario, no matter if solipsism is real or not, what we experience in each moment is a direct manifestation of reality. And with this realization, we go beyond solipsism utterly."
Anyone---even Jupi's 8 year-old---can see that this statement is false. From a position of 'solipsim' (which can have many different inflections), we may be completely erroneous about 'all of it', 'what it means', 'where I stand in relation to it', and certainly what is 'enlightenment'. It may NOT be a direct manifestation of 'reality' but an exteriorization of neurosis or anything else for that matter. In direct proportion to your 'beyond solipsism utterly', I would assert the possibility of 'entering utterly into it'. At the very least we would all need to take the possibility of self-deception into account.
Again, your mental block is getting in the way. To understand my point, you would need to understand how it is that reality is everything. It doesn't matter if everything I experience is a neurosis or a demon-inspired dream or a simulation or whatever - the mere fact that everything I experience is a part of existence means that it is a direct experience of reality.

This point is very difficult to explain to those with mental blocks, but I can only point out the obvious truth that whatever exists always has something ultimately real about it - which automatically means that everything is ultimately real.

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Re: On consciousness

Post by Talking Ass »

Diebert asks: "But the neurosis at least would be real. Or is that provisional?"
I have the sense that much hinges in this area. If 'provisional' is taken to mean: "Arranged or existing for the present, possibly to be changed later", we would likely be compelled to answer that yes. But the real meaning, it seems to me, is that all of our arrangements of facts, all of our organizations of perception, all of our fighting to insist that our pet [sic] definitions are correct, often express [principally] our muddled understanding, which is part-and-parcel of our distorted 'self', which is to say our battered self, and in this sense our afflicted self and traumatized self.

But going even further: I think that what we have to look for is not so much the certainty of a specific viewpoint or description [of reality], but perhaps we should only begin to put on the table those 'neurotic descriptions' that have been formulated in our history and discern the hidden levels of meaning? They are referencing something, are they not? but what exactly? That meaning is what I call 'beckoning'. Since it comes from out of the known and the tangible, it essentially cannot deal in known and tangible terms: hence mythology and all it connotes.

I also find it interesting that David can say that really what seems to matter is 'spiritual development and enlightenment', which places any description or specific organization [of our perception] on a secondary rung. But if THAT is so, indeed that is a game-changer! Because it doesn't really matter what specific ViewMaster Disc one puts in the device, but what is intimated from that 'God who stands outside of this and all possible worlds' and who, if you accept my view, beckons to us through the very structure of the world in ways that are simply incomprehensible.

Naturally, I am inclined to this version of reality (available on ViewMaster), and you to this one (also available on VM).
Last edited by Talking Ass on Mon Apr 30, 2012 2:38 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: On consciousness

Post by David Quinn »

jupiviv wrote:
David Quinn wrote:The truth of solipsism can never be proven or disproven. It is impossible, for example, to dismiss the possibility that one's own consciousness is the only consciousness there is and that everyone else is an unconscious automaton within one's consciousness. This is an eternal uncertainty that not even the greatest of Buddhas can resolve.
Solipsists believe that one's own consciousness is the only *thing* that can be certainly said to exist, not the only *consciousness* specifically. It can definitely be disproved that a person's consciousness is the only thing that certainly exists(see my previous post). It can also be disproved that it is the only consciousness that certainly exists, because one is conscious of different things, and therefore has different consciousnesses. Basically it rests on the false assumption that there is some kind of a substance/stream of consciousness beyond the appearance of things.
You seem to be going off on a tangent there. The essence of the solipsist's position is that there is no objective criteria that he can use to distinguish between the idea that he alone has consciousness and the idea that everyone he meets also has consciousness. And he is perfectly correct in this. There is no objective criteria. For whatever criteria he cares to call upon will always be an object of his own consciousness.

Or to put the matter more crudely, he can never go beyond his own consciousness and peek at what's there.

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Re: On consciousness

Post by Kunga »

David Quinn wrote: he can never go beyond his own consciousness and peek at what's there.
Does that have anything to do with evolution ? I often think it's impossible to know more than what our evolutionary brains can allow.
Other civilizations in the Universe, that have evolved millions of years beyond Earth, have the capacity to learn/know what we could never comprehend in our present condition.
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Re: On consciousness

Post by jupiviv »

David Quinn wrote:You seem to be going off on a tangent there. The essence of the solipsist's position is that there is no objective criteria that he can use to distinguish between the idea that he alone has consciousness and the idea that everyone he meets also has consciousness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

Solipsism is the position that we can only be certain about our own mind and things therein.

It doesn't matter that we can't know for sure whether others have consciousness. What matters is that the consciousness called "our own" is not the only thing we can be sure of. For example, we can be sure of an external world that causes our own mind/consciousness.
Or to put the matter more crudely, he can never go beyond his own consciousness and peek at what's there.
That would be realism, not solipsism. I don't think things exist independently of their observers. Whatever I observe is the reality, and vice versa,
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Re: On consciousness

Post by jupiviv »

cousinbasil wrote:
jupiviv wrote:Science deals with specific causes and effects, not the idea of causality itself.
This is the hugest possible load of horse-shit. I have no idea what made you believe this, but it is eerily familiar in this forum. Do yourself a favor. Dare to educate yourself. Your certainty might be challenged for a while - but hey, jup- you're young. You can take it.
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Show me a scientific paper on the idea of causality itself. Better yet, show me some empirical proof for the fact that all things are caused.
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As I said in my previous post, that is part of what you think is the justification of your position. Question a person's erudition instead of dealing with his actual arguments.
You have none.

Well that's a thing ain't it? How can poor old you respond to my arguments when I don't have any! But don't worry, I'll go and find some in the 20th dimension.

BTW I'm 21, not 25. :)
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Re: On consciousness

Post by Kunga »

Talking Ass wrote: what if we are not God's children but God's vermin?
Yes, he created us, and gave us free will, and we evolved into this vermin because we chose our way instead of Gods way. Only those that worshipped God and followed his commandments are worthy of being "Sons of God...Gods chosen people".

I get this. But it repulses me that God could be so heartless, as heartless as the vermin. My only recourse was to reject this heartless God...as he rejects his own flesh and blood.
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Re: On consciousness

Post by Talking Ass »

David writes: "It doesn't matter if everything I experience is a neurosis or a demon-inspired dream or a simulation or whatever - the mere fact that everything I experience is a part of existence means that it is a direct experience of reality. / This point is very difficult to explain to those with mental blocks, but I can only point out the obvious truth that whatever exists always has something ultimately real about it - which automatically means that everything is ultimately real."
Well, at this point I can somewhat agree with you since my understanding is that there is a 'something' standing behind all Manifestation. The difference between yours an my view is that for me what 'stands behind' all things is more than (your) the sum-total of things.

Still, you must keep in mind that I am thinking in 'kabbalistic' terms: all of our ideas about any 'ultimate' reality comes to us through a flawed structure: the mind, the perceptive tool. It is the world of all possible images and organizations. Yet, there is a kind of hierarchy (superior-inferior) of Vision, and there are lower and limited rungs (of perception). The trick seems to be: achieve the most pure Vision, or the most all-inclusive, or the widest one. Or, find that tradition which seems to have best emplored 'all that' and 'mine' within it: use new hermeneutical tools and to 'restate' in terms that express the purest 'spark' of 'truth'.

I always think that your *rationalistic* system of (achieving vision) is flawed because it derives from lower, not higher, levels. So, though you indeed experience 'reality' as 'the limits of what you conceive', it is not all there is to be perceived.

You need some better or perhaps different ViewMaster discs. I can help. Okay, study this one and learn to develop appropriate feelings for Penny Robinson that will then be carried over to the life you live. We'll consider this a reprogramming project.
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Sandy wrote: "My only recourse was to reject this heartless God."
Sure, but that only tends to piss him off even more. Better to fein obedience when He's around and do what the fuck you please when He's not. That has worked for me anyway.
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Re: On consciousness

Post by Kunga »

Talking Ass wrote:Sandy wrote: "My only recourse was to reject this heartless God."Sure, but that only tends to piss him off even more. Better to fein obedience when He's around and do what the fuck you please when He's not. That has worked for me anyway.
I pretty much obey the Laws of Love without needing a slave driver to whip me. Men only obey God out of fear.
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Re: On consciousness

Post by Talking Ass »

But it is the very place that is the 'slave driver', the prison, and the prison-keeper. It changes things if we see ourselves as having chosen our own condition. Other possibilities (are said to) exist,.and we can choose them, but the process of making that change takes (it is said) a whole series of lives lived. This is why anyplace where there occurs existential/spiritual questioning is a place where the two extremes tend to show themselves. Coincidentia oppositorum. And there both the Devils and the Angels sell their wares.
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Re: On consciousness

Post by Kunga »

Talking Ass wrote:But it is the very place that is the 'slave driver', the prison, and the prison-keeper. It changes things if we see ourselves as having chosen our own condition. Other possibilities (are said to) exist,.and we can choose them, but the process of making that change takes (it is said) a whole series of lives lived. This is why anyplace where there occurs existential/spiritual questioning is a place where the two extremes tend to show themselves. Coincidentia oppositorum. And there both the Devils and the Angels sell their wares.
You mean if we love and obey God, we have nothing to fear...it is fear itself that sees God as the evil slave driver ? When in fact we are driving ourselves into this prison by disobeying Him ? If we choose to follow his rules willingly, instead of using our free will to choose, we will be rewarded.....like mice in a maze ?

Talking Ass wrote:: "Humor will get you through times of no wisdom better than wisdom will get you through times of no humor."
Yes....my chakras have just been cleared, by the God of laughter. Love fills my heart when I laugh.....so if God is Love, he will make you love him purely with laughter, if you lack the wisdom of reaching him any other way....?
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Re: On consciousness

Post by Talking Ass »

We do not have a clear sense of What 'god' is and far less what obedience might mean. In some way, the use of the term 'god' is little more than an historical curiosity. We have lost the capacity to define 'him'. So, we are left bathed in the waters of a world where god has become absent. Or, all connecting ideas to 'god' have been short circuited. Modern man has not only negated the sacred, he has been extruded into a desacralized cosmos. In such a world, what would you 'obey' or 'disobey'?

It is 'the place' itself that holds and inflicts all the cruelties. We only seem to be cheap imitators.

"Where pain has ceased completely, there in Nirvana. Awareness of life is painful, consciousness is painful. Self is the vessel of consciousness. To end pain, annihilate self. But, all of this leave for tomorrow. Today, let's party!"

---The Donkkha
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Re: On consciousness

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